Assessment and the Iowa Core Curriculum

1. Assessment and theIowa Core Curriculum Ideas about what to do right now

2. Learning Goals for this session • Participants will understand the major components of an assessment system. • Participants will understand reasons to focus on the classroom level of assessment. • Participants will recognize that a thorough understanding of the Essential Concepts and Skills is a prerequisite to development of assessments aligned with the Iowa Core Curriculum.

3. What do we know? • People are asking what they need to do with assessment relative to the Iowa Core • Iowa Core content hasn’t talked a lot about assessment issues yet • None of these have changed: • Chapter 12 rules related to assessment • The big ideas of good assessment • Our need to know what kids know & can do

4. What don’t we know? • We don’t know the impact of National Standards on implementation of the Iowa Core Curriculum. • We don’t know what changes may happen with Chapter 12 over time.

5. What ISgoing on? • Iowa End-of-Course Assessments available • ITBS/ITED is up for revision/renorming (2011?) • Iowa is developing Assessment For Learning professional development resources • Assessment AdvisoryGroup has providedrecommendations tothe DE (not yet released)

6. What is NOT going on? • As far as anyone knows: • There is no comprehensive test being designed to assess all essential concepts and skills of the Iowa Core Curriculum • There is no secret plan to abolish Chapter 12 assessment requirements • There are no plans to abandon the Iowa Tests • There is no evidence of a new high-stakes assessment tied to graduation requirements

7. What else have you heard? • Talk with your neighbors… • Be prepared to share

8. Iowa’s Assessment System Accountability for the State; uses sampling, every other year Accountability for Districts & Schools for Chapter 12 & NCLB (ITBS/ITED) Accountability for Schools & Classrooms; supports instructional planning Ongoing assessment to guide instruction at classroom & student level

9. Big ideas in assessment • The curriculum is important • All of your kids are important • It is important to know to what extent each of your kids are learning and mastering the whole curriculum • Your assessment system needs to give you this information in a consistent, trustworthy way • No single assessment will do this for you • Compromises are inevitable

10. Assessment and the Three Bears • Large grain for national & state assessments • Smaller grain for district assessments • Fine grain for classroom assessment • ITBS too big for guiding daily instruction • Can’t assess everything for large-scale testing • Find the “just right” size for each purpose

11. Purposes of Assessment • Screening • Diagnostic • Formative • Assessment for learning (instruction-embedded) • General Outcome (progress monitoring) • Summative/Outcome

12. Where to work first? • Given the ideas in the last few slides, where are we the weakest right now? Where should LEAs be focusing their efforts? • Talk at your table.

13. Think about it… Less Control More Control

14. Point to ponder • In order to build or buy new assessments,we must first thoroughly understand the Essential Concepts and Skills we plan to measure • If we don’t understand the ICC, we’ll end up building or buying assessments that don’t measure the right stuff or do it poorly. • Vendor claims of alignment should not be trusted – they should be tested

15. Assessing the Core ??? ??? ITBS/ITED? ITBS/ITED? DIBELS? ITBS/ITED?

16. Assessment for Learning • Research suggests quality classroom formative assessment practices will make a big difference in outcomes for students • Formative Assessment is a process used by teachers and students as part of instruction that provides feedback to adjustongoing teaching and learning toimprove students’ achievementof core content.

17. Assessment for Learning • Lives inside of “characteristics of effective instruction” content (Outcome 6) • Assessment for Learning is embedded and inseparable from instruction • Includes both planned and on-the-fly assessment opportunities • Cannot happen effectivelywithout a strong understandingof the content

18. Iowa Core Curriculum Determine learning goals & Define criteria for success

19. Formative Assessment Misconceptions • Formative assessment is a thing (a test or quiz) • I already “do” formative assessment because I: • watch kids to see if they understand • give a pretest at the beginning of a unit • use data to make decisions about what to teach • The XYZ assessment is formative. Itsays so right here! • It’s too hard for the common teacherto do

20. What can we do now? • FIRST… Help all educators develop a deep understanding of the essential concepts and skills of the Iowa Core Curriculum • THEN… Begin to study best practicesin formative assessment. • But remember, if you don’t knowthe content, you can’t teach it. If you don’t teach it, don’t assess it.

21. To worry or not to worry… No worries: • New assessment requirements • Buy a new test NOW • Train teachers in formativeassessment ASAP • Redo the entireassessment system Worry about this: • Thoroughly understand the Essential Concepts and Skills

22. The bottom line All educators need a deep and thorough understanding of the Essential Concepts and Skills of the Iowa Core Curriculum across grades.